Artifice
by vernajast
Summary: "NO! You understand! I know you're lying. Like baa-chan. Like Mother and Father!" Hand already on the doorknob, Sasori turned to hurl another glare over his shoulder. "I'll find a way to make you stay by me always!" Sasori/Third Kazekage.


Sasori/Third Kazekage. Strange pairing, I know, but I was fascinated by Sasori having the Third Kazekage as one of his puppets. Also, this piece was made into a doujinshi by Yoriuku on deviantART! Ryu is just the name I chose for the Kazekage; it seemed odd not giving him one at all.

* * *

**Artifice  
by vernajast**

**_Sasori x Third Kazekage_**

**Age 16**

"I made a new puppet today. They say I'm as good as Chiyo-baa. Hn, I'd say I'm better." Sasori exhaled sharply, glaring at the ceiling. He knew the people in the photographs couldn't hear him. It left him raw and aching.

"Mother, Father. I'm no longer a child, and yet you haven't returned." He rolled to his stomach. To see their faces. To remember the first people who abandoned him. His eyes touched on his own nose, "Father." His mouth, "Mother."

"Chiyo-baa's lies are wearing thin, especially now that she's left me for retirement and isn't here to back them up."

With a strained sigh, the teenager took the portraits of his parents down from the shelf and placed them on his pillow, just next to his head.

"Mm. Goodnight. I miss you."

* * *

**Age 17**

The sun glinted off the various trinkets around Suna: wind chimes, stained glass mosaics, mirrors. A pale gray sky slowly suffused with blue as he neared the Kazekage's residence. He entered with a word to the two guards, so used to his comings and goings that they paid him no heed except a shared, knowing grimace passing between the pair in silence.

His knuckles rapped on the heavy oaken door, and he waited in silence. For a moment, some part of his mind travelled away from Suna, grasping at false images of Konoha, the land of their enemies. The wood of the door was not native to the desert and he wondered, not for the first time, if there had once been peace between the warring nations. He highly doubted anyone alive could remember.

Abruptly, his full attention whipped around to the opening door and the face behind it. The Kazekage's unusually grim features surprised him, and Sasori stepped forward, eagerly leaning up on tip-toe to find the man's mouth and kiss away his worry lines.

Kicking the door closed and nibbling his lover's lip in one well-practiced, fluid motion, Sasori pressed the older man back against the desk. They'd never done it on the desk, though Sasori admitted he'd been tempted before. _The desk, it is._ He shoved harder against the other, just as his tongue plunged into the warm, moist mouth. He gasped when a hand reached up between his thighs to cup his already full arousal, sliding up and over his waistband beneath his shirt. Fingers ghosted across the head of his hidden erection, and the hand withdrew quickly, as did the mouth. The Kazekage's eyes closed in pleasure as his fingers brushed his own lips and a pink tongue flicked out to taste the sweetness of Sasori's pre-come. Sasori felt his body tremble at the sight, but was distracted by the furrowed, worried knit between his lover's brows.

"What is bothering you today? Has something happened?"

When it was apparent there would be no answer, he made a pass at the man's lips again, his own tongue trailing across the frustratingly closed mouth and tasting the last traces of his own saltiness. He glared into the Kazekage's eyes, but backed away from the odd emptiness he saw within.

"Sasori, wait. Come here." The boy didn't move, so the kage stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him. He pulled him tight to his chest in a hug that threatened to end Sasori on the spot. A happy death, in his view.

"We can't keep doing this, Sasori." It was exhaled into his hair, painful words that lodged in his skull as sharply as Chiyo-baa's needles.

"What? Why?" he mumbled into the sacred robes of Suna, clutching at the sides of the blue and white fabric.

"My wife…she…"

"But you said—"

"Sasori, I'm sorry, but…"

He clutched the robes tighter, pressing into his lover's body, wishing more than anything to become one with the flesh beneath the fabric. "You said you love _me_! I love _you_! We're—"

"Please, don't…"

"We're supposed to be together. I love you!" Sasori felt like he was nine again and his parents were leaving for the last time. The same desperate ache threatened tears.

He felt the body holding him stiffen, its grip became loose, and then the arms fell away altogether as the words dropped from the mouth he longed to kiss again: "I don't…love…you." The boy backed away with a jolt, wild-eyed and feral. "Please, Sasori, please understand."

"NO! _You_ understand! I know you're lying. Like baachan. Like Mother and Father. I know it!" Hand already on the doorknob, Sasori turned to hurl another glare over his shoulder. "I'll find a way to make you stay by me always!"

The door slammed and the Kazekage listened intently as thudding footsteps faded, then died altogether. He broke the condemning silence of the office to whisper, "I'm sorry."

**

* * *

Age 20**

"Sasori no Danna?" A blanket fell across Sasori's shoulders, draping perfectly and instantly cutting the cold. Hi lips curled into a vague smile. Deidara always knew.

"What do you want?" He could feel the blond teenager's gaze, but felt no compulsion to react.

"I made you something." Sasori turned toward the younger man to see Deidara's outstretched hand. Nestled in the palm was a tiny scorpion made of white clay. The craftsmanship was exquisite and his fingers itched to touch the beautiful creation. Deidara was a true artist.

"You made it from clay…that was in your mouth? Why would I want to touch that?" Something in his own heart cracked at the way Deidara's eyes visibly fell and Sasori fought the urge to take it back, to pocket the small scorpion and maybe let his hand rest a second or two longer than necessary in his partner's, just to see those blue [? eyes light up with hope.

_Hope._ That was the problem. That kind of hope always ended in disappointment. Parents didn't come back. The most trusted, precious people lied with straight faces. Lovers abandoned one another.

Sasori did not love Deidara. Not at all.

_Never again._

Such emotions were _inconvenient_, at best. He wouldn't be abandoned again.

"Let's go. This is a waste of time, and there are still many tasks to complete before we rest for the night." Sasori ran a hand through his red hair, shrugged the blanket off of his shoulders, and left Deidara kneeling beside it in the grass. He was still holding out the little scorpion, an offering to no one.

**

* * *

Age 22**

_Is it a joke? It couldn't really be…could it? Why?_

Sasori mumbled incoherently as he moved through the bleak rows of mostly empty cells, grunting and exhaling, biting his lip. It had been nearly five years since he left the village and it made no sense.

When he reached the end of the hall, he tapped Deidara on the shoulder, waking the other from a light nap.

"Danna, eh, sorry, I—"

"Leave us. I'll take the rest of your shift."

"But, I was told…Orochimaru-san will—" A sharp glare from his beautiful Sasori sent Deidara away without another word.

The man in the cell grunted and shifted in his sleep as Sasori paced in front of it. Eventually, he gave in to his urge and moved over to the bars. He pressed his face between them, the sharp coldness of Rain Country clinging to the metal bit at the soft sensitive of his cheeks, but he ignored it. "Kazekage-sama…Ryu?" At the sound of his name, the Kazekage sat bolt upright. Pain shot across his features, but only for a moment before giving way to relief.

His voice came out as a choked, gravelly whisper. "Sasori! Sasori, Sasori…" Fingers drifted between the bars. A palm cupped Sasori's face and it was as if nothing had changed. After a miserable, lonely year, his Ryu had come back to him. A shock pulsed through his mind and he jumped away from the man as if he were poison. _No one comes back._

"Who are you, really?"

"Sasori…I…it's me…"

"No. If you are whom you resemble, why would he come here? He wouldn't. Got to hell, imposter."

He was already ten steps down the corridor when he heard, "Sasori! Wait! I love you!" A nearby prisoner chuckled, but blanched at the look he received from the puppet master.

Cautiously allowing himself to hope, Sasori went back.

"Is it…really you, Ryu?" The hand emerged again from the bars, and this time, Sasori took it, twining their fingers.

"I came to find you."

"You won't to bring me back." There was no doubt that his statement was a fact. Sasori wouldn't return to Suna.

"No. I didn't plan to. Sasori, I'm dying."

"Oh? _Dying?_" He dropped the hand and took a step back. "Hn. This gets better and better, does it not?"

"It's true! I just wanted…needed to find you." The desperation in his voice told of an obsessive search, lost hope, loneliness. But the weakness in the man who had once been the strong pillar in his life turned his stomach.

Sasori watched him shift beneath the shadows of the bars, uncertain how to proceed. He had dared to hope, for an instant, only to have it stolen again. _Dying._

"Please, Sasori. Let me spend my last days with you? I always loved you. I'm sorry!"

With an unmistakable look of disgust, Sasori walked away.

"I might be back later. Who knows?"

An arm wrapped protectively around the young man's shoulders was merely a reminder of better times. Of Mother and Father and Chiyo-baa and a steadier version of the man beside him. He pushed such thoughts away, along with Ryu's arm. "How long?"

"I've been searching for so many months that I thought I would miss you. As it is, a week, at most."

They walked on, both lost in thought, beneath the crescent moon and a billion silent stars.

"Where were you?"

"In the library. Has Dei-kun been treating you well?" His lover's ragged breathing was painful to hear and he forcibly shut it out of his heart, along with everything else. Soon, it wouldn't matter; he'd found that for which he'd been searching diligently for days.

"It's nearly time, Sasori…I don't feel—feel like I can make it another day." Sasori laid a hand upon the Kazekage's. He noted, clinically, that the skin's temperature and elasticity were ideal.

"Really? Hn." With studious dedication, he began consciously memorizing the man's voice and features, his movements. "Ryu, tell me about your life?"

Sasori snuggled into the other's arms as the story began and listened to remember.

Sasori woke with a start just as Ryu started coughing, sitting up in the dark and squinting to make out his surroundings. Ryu coughed again and something warm and wet landed on Sasori's hand.

Rising to his feet, he lit a candle and moved back to Ryu's side. _Blood. It's time._

With a steadying breath, Sasori stood again, abandoning Ryu and the candle to move to the center of a chalk drawing he'd already prepared. He brought his hands together, belatedly remembering the blood and swiping it on his black robes. Again, he brought his hands together and began to form the necessary seals—Chi, Sui, Ka, Fu, Ku, Seimei.

"Sasori, what…NO! I know that jutsu…I—" A coughing fit wracked the Kazekage's lungs as the younger nin continued to form his seals. "Stop…stop…Sasori…"

"You won't DIE!" he yelled back at the man. "Shut up!"

"No…I don't want to…exist like that!"

"Don't worry. We'll be together, forever, this way. I love you. I won't _let_ you desert me again! **Everyone** leaves me! Everyone. But not you…you came back!"

Deidara was tired of waiting. Sasori—_his_ Sasori—had been locked up with that dying heap for days. _What can he be doing?_

He tapped on the door, unwilling to disturb them but unable to deny the urge any longer. When he received no answer, he quietly stole into the room. "Sasori no Danna"

"What is it?" The voice came from somewhere deep within. The work desk, most likely.

"Are you okay, danna? Where is the Kazekage?"

"I'm busy. Go away."

"But I—"

"Go!"

With a frustrated sigh, Deidara backed out of the room. The door clicked into place, a hollow echo in the hallway.

The puppet master Sasori leaned over his work, peering down at the miniscule dials and gears of an elbow. It would be perfect. A perfect elbow. A perfect knee. Perfect…everything.

His masterpiece.

His greatest creation.

With a crooked smile, he reached up to pat the hand of the puppet beside him. "Ryu, it won't be long. Soon, I will be complete and we'll be together. Forever."

He examined his own slender hand carefully, poking at the flesh, then selected the right materials and took measurements. _A perfect hand for my perfect body._

"Forever, Kazekage-sama."

[ .forever ]


End file.
